Detainees win appeal against anti-terror law

Britain's highest court ruled Thursday that the government cannot continue to indefinitely detain foreigners suspected of terrorism without charging or trying them, saying the practice violated European human-rights conventions.

A special panel of nine law lords of the House of Lords, England's equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled 8-1 in favor of nine foreign Muslim men, at least one of whom has been in detention for three years. Most of the men are being held in Belmarsh prison in London, which human-rights groups have called "Britain's Guantanamo."

In its powerfully worded, groundbreaking decision, the jurists said the unlimited detention policy was draconian, discriminated against foreigners and was unjustifiable, even in the face of possible terrorist attacks. They deemed the detentions a clear violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which applies in all European Union nations, in a declaration that removes one of the government's crucial anti-terrorism tools.

In his opinion, Lord Leonard Hoffmann said the case was one of the most important decided by the law lords in recent years.

"It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention," he wrote.

Hoffmann went on to say that the detentions posed a greater threat to the nation than terrorism: "The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these."

"That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve," he added. "It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory."

The ruling parallels a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that those deemed enemy combatants held at a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, must be given the ability to challenge their detention before a judge or other neutral "decision maker."

Taken together, the rulings complicate the anti-terrorism efforts of the two strongest allies, the United States and Britain.

The British ruling also provided a strong demonstration of the increasing interdependence of the domestic laws of nations and international law, at least outside the United States. Although U.S. law is widely recognized as having been derived from the British common law and the Magna Carta, the law lords repeatedly cited decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court to bolster their rejection of the British government's actions. But they did not cite the June ruling regarding the Guantanamo detainees.

The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair passed the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act in 2001, soon after the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks in the United States. To enact the measure, the British government had to invoke an article of the European Convention on Human Rights allowing countries to opt out of restrictions on detentions.

The law, designed to expire in 2006, allows the Home Office to indefinitely detain, without charges, those foreigners it suspects of terrorist-related activities who cannot be deported because they would face persecution in their home countries. But the detainees may choose to return to their homelands voluntarily or to go to any other country that will accept them.

The detainees have not been told why they are imprisoned and have no access to the evidence the government holds against them, primarily because the authorities consider such information too sensitive to reveal.

They also have not been allowed to hire lawyers. Instead, the government has appointed lawyers with security clearance for them and permitted the attorneys to see the evidence and argue on the detainees' behalf.

The lawyers, however, have been barred from discussing any of the information with their clients.

The decision leaves Blair's government with the choice of charging or releasing the nine men or modifying the law to conform to the Human Rights Convention.

Gareth Peirce, one of the lawyers representing the detainees, said the ruling means the government must move quickly to release them.

Seventeen men are believed to have been detained under the law, with 11 of them remaining in custody. Two of detainees were not named in the appeal to the law lords.